Workout at work

[rikibeth]

Nine cases of chuck in today's delivery. At 55-60 pounds each. I can lift them. I did.

Most of the trucks came early, which meant I got a late start grinding beef. This made me feel a bit rushed and stressed, especially when the grinder die got clogged in the first batch, because I'd cut five pounds of the best-marbled, least-stringy stuff out of the first two pieces for Wellington bites and for the chili, and the stringy remainder decided to wrap around the blade. What a mess.

And once I got the deliveries put away, I had to switch from beef to pork, because we were all out of ground pork, and then switch BACK to beef, which was another delay. At least I didn't have to grind chicken, I did that yesterday. Still. Five full deep Lexans, because we're going into a holiday weekend.

I have also discovered that if I turn a full case of salmon into 8oz portions, the leftover scraps from a full case are about the same volume as the two whole filets that the recipe is built for, and that gives the line more 8oz portions than if I'd set aside two filets and added scraps.

Each six-pan holds eight to ten sliced tomatoes. Knowing this helps me be more efficient at slicing. I can fit 24 in the square pan. We're supposed to have three perforated six-pan inserts, but I only ever seem to be able to find two -- and we have two that fit the square pans. So one square pan gets diced tomatoes, and one gets extra sliced, and if we run low on diced, it's easy to turn a sliced tomato into diced on the fly. It's not so easy to turn a diced tomato back into sliced.

Got the last of the cases of rolls out of the walk-in. Not sure why they were there in the first place, I didn't put them there. Having them out of the walk-in makes me feel MUCH better -- they were BOTHERING me, sitting in the spots where Other Things are supposed to go.

I was done by about 4:30, so I couldn't have been as far behind as I FELT. Still, I'm looking forward to tomorrow, when I won't have to put away deliveries first thing.

Comments

[dpolicar]

So, I have to say here, I am totally impressed by your control of a high-volume kitchen environment. I get a little charge of accomplishment just putting together food for two people for the next couple of days; the idea of working through umpty-pound batches of ingredients the way you do just leaves me in admiration. Yay you!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's just prepwork. Repetitive motions, and there's only time pressure when the line hasn't kept on top of their planning; they're in charge of making my list, and if they give themselves enough cushion, I can just work at a comfortable pace and know they'll have the stuff when they need it. It's when they let themselves get critically low or if they unexpectedly run out of something that I really have to bust my ass getting things done as quickly as possible. If I were working the line, I'd have to be that quick all the time, which is not my thing.

Michaele's was harder, because I was kitchen manager, and although there wasn't a hot line, there was a lot more time pressure AND I was the one who had to keep on top of the planning. Not to mention, my boss was crazy, and not in a good way.

But thank you!

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

"It's not so easy to turn a diced tomato back into sliced.'

All you need is a little epoxy...